It is also responsible for a range of paramilitary
activities as well — including the Spetsnaz, the clandestine
special forces that Moscow deployed in its March 2014
annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula.

Under Sergun, the GRU recovered from a range of setbacks
stemming from Russia's 2008 invasion of Georgia. Although
Georgia's military was decisively beaten in the war, the GRU
performed poorly during the conflict. According to an
IHS Jane's analysis, during the war the GRU was deemed
responsible for "friendly-fire incidents as a result of poor
inter-service co-operation," including one in which six Russian
paratroopers were killed.

As a result, the directorate underwent what New York University
professor and Russian security sector expert Mark Galeotti
described in a May 2014 blog post as "a
savage round of cuts," in which 1,000
officers and 80 of the directorate's 100 general-level officers
were either transferred or retired. All Spetsnaz brigades were
disbanded or moved under other military commands, while the GRU's
presence in Russian embassies abroad was dramatically scaled
back.

Under Sergun, the GRU regained control of the Spetsnaz and
became a crucial instrument of Russian policy. The Spetsnaz were
expanded in early 2014 under the pretext of providing additional
security for the Sochi Winter Olympics,
according to IHS Jane's. And shortly after that, they
became a central part of the boldest Russian geopolitical
gambit in a generation, helping to annex Crimea and
maintaining pro-Moscow separatists' control over parts of eastern
Ukraine.

A
man holds a Russian flag on the roof of the naval headquarters in
Sevastopol, March 19, 2014.REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko

The GRU's emergence under Sergun demonstrates the
evolution of Russia's strategy and priorities since the Georgia
war.
Galeotti notes that after that conflict, there was some doubt
as to whether the GRU would even retain its status a main
directorate.

Military espionage and paramilitary aspects of Russian
military operations were in danger of being reorganized
under a series of different offices, showing the GRU and its
functions had fallen out of favor among Russia's security
elite.

It now seems surprising that this was ever the case. After
the Ukraine war, the annexation of Crimea, and a host of other
GRU activities — including its role in
propping the military of embattled Syrian president Bashar al
Assad — it's hard to imagine Russian foreign policy without
"Putin's
secret weapon." Sergun was a crucial part of Russia's
security apparatus in a time when Moscow became increasingly
ruthless, and less restrained by international norms.